


Stay

by italktoomuch



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-29 01:08:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5110853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/italktoomuch/pseuds/italktoomuch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I ran when they told me. Not immediately. I sat, Peeta tensed beside me, I felt numb. The doctor spoke, I nodded at the right bits, though I don’t remember what he said. And then we left, Peeta’s hand in my left, a slip of paper in my right. Silent, still numb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

Stay

I ran when they told me. Not immediately. I sat, Peeta tensed beside me, I felt numb. The doctor spoke, I nodded at the right bits, though I don’t remember what he said. And then we left, Peeta’s hand in my left, a slip of paper in my right. Silent, still numb.

He drove home, his jaw tight and his eyes blinking much more than they usually do. We pulled up at our home, the engine dying and the slams of our doors echoing in my head. I take two steps to the door, turn my head to look at Peeta and catch a glance of Willow and Rye’s bikes, standing up against the house like I’d asked them to do before we left.

My breath catches in my throat and I freeze. I look at Peeta now, and here myself mumbling that I have to go. And then I turn, striding away and breaking into a desperate run, lungs burning with the cold air and my eyes watering. I don’t stop until think my chest is on fire and I choke on the awful sob that claws its way out from my mouth. My arms latch around my knees as I sink into the roots of a large oak in the country park near us.

My chest heaves a shaky cry and I release a broken, quiet scream.

My name is Katniss Mellark. I work in a research lab at Panem University. I’m married to Peeta, I love him so much. I love our children. Willow, Rye, Callie. Callie is barely six months old.

I can’t have cancer. I can’t leave them.

*

The walls in the ward are white, the sheets are white, even the air seems white; clean, sterile. I suppose even I am pale too.

Peeta sits on the chair next to my bed, one hand in my hair, stroking gently, the other clutched tightly in mine. They need a biopsy first, and I didn’t want to waste time on ending this whole thing.

Biopsy first.

If I think of each procedure and treatment that I have to go through like a list, like a broken down game, then I can get through it. Now, it’s just the biopsy. I’ll think about what comes after this when it’s over.

The nurse approaches silently, twiddling with my drip, increasing my anaesthetic. I’ll be out in no time.

Peeta stands, his legs pressing on the edge on the bed and I feel my eyes grow heavy and my mouth slacken. I grip his hand tighter. I don’t want him to go, I don’t want to have to let him go.

He bends, pushes my hair back again, and presses his lips to my forehead for a long kiss. My eyes flutter closed and I know I won’t be able to open them again now.

He sighs as he pulls back and I reach a weightless hand up to his head, trying to keep him with me.

“Stay with me,” I slur, my hand growing weaker and slipping away from him. I’ve vaguely aware of the presence of other people here, but I listen for him before I slip away completely.

“Always.”

*

“We are happy with how much of the tumour-,” I still flinch at the word. Tumour. I hadn’t even noticed it was there until… well, until now. I’d thought it a blocked milk duct, not… cancer.

“How much of the tumour we were able to remove,” the doctor carries on. “However.”

There’s always a however.

“I wouldn’t like to be over confident with how much we removed. So, firstly, I’d like to start chemotherapy, to kill the rest of the cancer cells. It doesn’t look like it has spread outside your breast tissue, and I’m optimistic that this, and maybe some radiotherapy will be the right way forward. You’re young, Mrs Mellark, you’re healthy –“

Apart from the cancer, I think.

“I’d say the odds are in your favour.”

I nod and ask when I can start chemo. He tells me as soon as two days. I nod and leave quickly, wanting to spend as much time as I can with my family.

Somehow, I don’t trust the odds anymore.

When I get home, Willow and Rye run full pelt at me, falling into me with giggles and an oooph. I crouch down and pull their little bodies to mine in a tight hug. I’m so overcome with fear of not being here with them, of leaving them, that I have to bite my lip to stop myself from sobbing; feeling much more like they are comforting me than the other way around.

They don’t know how I feel, or how Peeta feels. I’d rather they didn’t, I’d rather they didn’t have to worry at three and five about their mother … dying.

“Hey,” Peeta emerges and I smile softly. He’s been taking more time off work recently, and I can’t work at all. I don’t know how we’re going to cope; thank God the bakery is his own business.

I tell the children to go and get me their pictures they had been working on and they run off eagerly. I drop my smile and stand, letting Peeta’s arms pull me to him and his warmth.

“How was it?” he murmurs, his lips burning against my neck.

“Fine. I start chemo on Thursday.”

He just nods. Callie cries from upstairs, her nap over. Peeta sighs and we pull away. “I’ll go.”

“No,” I say, a little too quickly, and he throws me a question with just a look.

“I want to go… I want to see her.” I leave out the bit about how I want to soak up as much as I can about her in case I don’t have much time left to.

He nods and let’s me go. And when I pull her body to mine, all smiles and bright grey eyes and long dark eyelashes I am overwhelmed with an awful mix of love and sadness and desperation, that my pretence wobbles and big fat tears run from my face as I try to make sure we have memorized each other’s.

*

My hair clogs the drain and I am too distraught to clean it up. I retreat to our bedroom, still wet with shower spray and sit on the edge of the bed, one hand holding my hair to my scalp, the other shaking over my mouth as I shiver in my dressing gown.

Peeta clears it before I flood the house and sits beside me, an arm over my shoulders and my face falling into his chest.

I didn’t think it would mean that much to me. But seeing it, big clumps and bald patches, turning me into … into looking like a cancer patient. It was too much.

Johanna and I shave our heads together. Our other friends, Annie and Madge, hold clippers to our scalps and count down, to the cheers of my unknowing children, Peeta, Finnick and Gale.

“Three.”

“Two.”

Johanna grabs my hand from the chair beside me and gives it a squeeze. I thank her with a timid one back. She doesn’t fully know how much it means to me, not to be doing this alone, not to have made this a pathetic defeat, crying as I do it myself one particularly bad day. I do not want it to control me, I want to have a choice. And this is one of them.

“One.”

I think about getting a wig, even go with Peeta to the store. But it itches and I can’t justify spending the money; money that we need more to afford my treatment and to treat the children and just keep going - which would’ve been easier, if I could work. But I can’t, not in the lab, it’s too risky. My job stands for me when I return. Everyone stops themselves from saying “if I return”, me included.

A woman called Effie at chemo one day teaches me different ways to wear a scarf, even letting me keep one of hers. I thank her and she nods. We all know too well how to appreciate the little things now.

*

I pull up into the driveway after my third chemo session. I don’t want to bring the kids to that place. There’s too much sadness and grief there for them. And Peeta had to work today, the children are with Haymitch, their grandfather figure and my reluctant but loving uncle/guardian for the years following my parents deaths.

I kill the engine, pull the keys and hastily grab my purse, clamping a hand over my mouth. I’ve already thrown up twice.

The door flies open under my hand, I slam it behind me and dart to the bathroom, every step and stair slowing me down.

I lock the door and turn to the toilet in one motion, choking and spluttering as I vomit into the bowl. I sigh and wipe my mouth, deflating. Peeta pushes on the door from the outside, his voice concerned when he can’t reach me. “Katniss?”

I don’t want him to see me like this. Especially not tonight.

“I’ll be two minutes, Peeta, please.”

I hear him hesitate and clear his throat. “O-okay.”

I sigh again and flush. I feel like shit.

But I’m going; even if it kil-. I shake my head. I’ll be fine.

Shakily, I place my hands on the edge of the bathtub and push up to my feet. I unlock the door and pick up my toothbrush to rid myself of the rancid taste, hopeful that this was the last time for today.

It isn’t.

I had a dress planned for tonight, I have done for months. Because this is a big deal. Peeta is showing his art in The Mansion Art House.

I do my make-up carefully. I tie my black scarf on my head and then slip into my dress.

I look at myself in the mirror and want to cry. My skin, while guised in make-up, is tired and paled, I know my non-existent hair would’ve looked perfect braided to the side, and my central line pokes out from the plunging neckline on my long, dark green dress.

“You look beautiful.” I turn, my eyes big and watering and see Peeta leaning casually against the doorway a smile on his face.

My lip trembles. “No I don’t. I look awful.” Two fat tears fall from my eyes and I wipe them as quickly as I can. I don’t have the time or the patience to redo my make-up.

His arms pull me easily against his solid body and I wrap mine around him, holding on to his shirt and my willpower.

“It isn’t fair. None of this is fair.”

I hear him swallow. “I know.”

“It’s your night… It was supposed to be perfect.”

His warm hand runs over the top of my arm.

“Katniss, you don’t have to come. Not if you’re not up to it.”

“No.” My voice is buried into him, but strong. “I’m not missing this.”

His thumbs stroke at my shoulders and he kisses my bald, scarf covered head. “If you’re sure.”

I nod again. And while he changes I go in search of some bandage tape to stop the tubes in my chest from poking out.

~

The room is huge, the grandest place I’ve ever seen, with artwork from floor to ceiling. We hover beside Peeta’s pieces, my fingers knotted with his. He looks so happy, a glass of champagne in his other hand. I smile for him and pretend that I am okay. I’m too hot, and I want to sleep. I refuse to eat or drink anything the whole night just in case. But I do it.

There’s a speech, and the gallery would like to award one of their fifty newest artists a small cash prize and plaque for artistic excellence. I clap and cheer as hard as I can when Peeta takes to the floor, looking baffled and confused and beaming in surprise and happiness. He catches my eye on his way back, as I wipe the sweat from my forehead. “You okay?” he mouths, and I manage a small smile back and an unconvincing nod.

He wraps an arm around my waist and says something about getting some air. Before we move, I smile, reach up a hand to cup his lightly stubbled jaw and pull his face next to mine. My lips rest just below his ear and they brush against him as I whisper, “I am so proud of you.”

*

Second last round of chemo. They think this working. They think, after the next round, I’ll be good to wait it out, fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

I’m tired, so tired. My limbs feel like they are floating and I slide into bed, even though it is only 2pm. I was supposed to collect the children, but Haymitch promised me he would instead, demanding I sleep, telling me I’m trying to do too much. I’m sure he knows I just don’t want to miss anything or any time with them.

The warmth pulls me in, the darkness welcoming me and I fall into an instant deep sleep.

“Mom…? Mom.”

“Shhh, your mom’s tired, she’s still a little sick.”

I smile at Peeta’s careful choice of words and sit up, lifting my eyelids open even though they feel like they weigh about a hundred pounds.

“Mom!”

Willow rushes back towards the room, climbing up on to the bed and settling onto my lap. I run a hand through her hair, the braids I done this morning loose and springing free. Rye follows his sister, but needs help scrambling on to the bed. Peeta nudges him up one handed, and sits beside me with a sleeping Callie in his arms.

Rye pushes up beside me, and I press a kiss to his blond hair before reaching for Callie. Peeta places her into my arms and she stirs, her lips moving silently and her eyes scrunching. I shush her and smile as she sighs and falls back into her world of sleep.

“Willow sang today in school, didn’t you pumpkin?” Peeta starts and Rye yawns, I pull him to me, his head falling into my lap.

Willow nods and smiles. She looks at me right in the eyes and at that moment, I know my little girl knows that I’m not just a little sick.

And then she sings. It’s the words I used to sing to her, and still do to her sister; the lullaby, the Meadow Song.

Her eyes don’t leave mine and I feel mine well up, my mouth pressed tightly together as I beam at her, trying desperately not to cry in case she thinks what she is doing is sad or bad or wrong. Because it is perfect.

And I’m not ever leaving them without a fight.

*

Remission. I smile faintly as I leave the hospital after they told me, but it doesn’t feel… enough. I’m still not sure of the odds.

Peeta cried when I phoned him, and asked me if I wanted to go out to celebrate. I told him I wanted to let the kids stay up as late as they wanted, order a pizza and just be. He laughed and agreed.

*

Two years. It’s good, they said, the chances of it coming back are less and less. But I still can’t stop feeling uneasy. I wonder if it will ever go away.

But I have to keep on living.

My hair is long enough again for me to manage a braid, Willow likes to try and copy me as I do it. Rye is starting school and Callie likes to follow her father around the bakery and art studio and sing with me in the car.

Two years.

*

Five years.

I laugh now when Dr Paylor tells me I’m “as good as cured.” It’s something I’ll have to accept; I know they won’t ever say the words I want to hear. But I always thought, if I could make it to five years, then I’ll be okay.

And I start to feel like I might be. I turn to Peeta before we get into the car.

“I love you.”

He smiles, properly smiles for the first time in years, much like me. He looks younger somehow, like finally we can stop worrying so much. He was so strong throughout it all, with the kids, looking after them, me, the bakery. I don’t know how he done it, but I can see the slightly creased lines on his forehead from then. I am determined to grow old with this man, and make sure to see all the other wrinkles that might get drawn on to his face.

“I love you too.”


End file.
